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WhyAustin, P. Terry’s and Growing with the City

Posted on: October 17, 2016By: Charlie Rall

We continue our #WhyAustin series with Founder and CEO of P. Terry’s, Patrick Terry.

Most Austinites know P. Terry’s as the homegrown fast food joint with the retro buildings and cheap, healthy (all natural) burgers. It is a staple in the Austin diet and always a landmark in anyone’s summer trek from a round at Peter Pan mini golf to a swim at Barton Springs. The city has grown and P. Terry’s has continued to grow with it now boasting 12 stores and more on the way. We sat down with Patrick Terry and our partners at the American Genius to get his perspective on the changing Austin business landscape and the future of doing business here. A few of our highlights below…

On what keeps him doing business in Austin:
“I think it’s the population. I don’t think there’s any doubt that when you deal with people conscious of their surroundings and a good sense of what they’re about, it makes it easy to work with, too.”

Troubles with the business environment for small and large corporations alike:
“To be honest, this is a tough town [due to] regulations. The city has an idea of what it wants to look like, and there are proper zoning laws. This is not Houston where anything goes. As a result, it’s different. I think that’s an issue, and you have be aware of that. It’s not going to change. Does it improve the overall environment of the city, and the way things are? You are going to get two different perspectives.”

Challenges for the future as an employer:
“The challenge is that we have very low unemployment. It’s easy to get a job here. Employees at every level can be picky…You have to go to great lengths, but that’s part of our culture. We were doing that when we started. It helps us that that’s always been the way that we are because as the city has gotten more popular and unemployment has gone down, it was nice to have that already plugged in.”

Stay tuned for more episodes in the #WhyAustin series, produced by our team at StoryCraft and The American Genius, to discover more about what makes Austin a great place to work, play and grow.